Dozens of children received their Christmas gifts three days early thanks to the Long Beach Police Department's annual Toy Patrol Saturday.

Santa sat in his sleigh atop a Long Beach Fire truck, sirens blaring, arriving at each youngster's home with hundreds of toys collected from around the city.

"Today is what we call our Code 3, or toy delivery day," said Long Beach Police Lt. Liz Griffin, organizer of this year's event.

"We deliver to 10 special families that we have pulled out of our stack of families who we felt were the most needy, and we deliver especially to them with police vehicles and fire trucks."

Families chosen come from a list of those police have come in contact with over time - including victims of crimes, and those whose parents have committed crimes, Griffin said.

"It's a great positive contact with police because sometimes they are afraid of us and ... this is a way for us to give back to our community," she said.

In addition to the chosen families, "handout" toys, also collected from the community, were given to kids who came out to see Santa.

"Parents are barely making ends meet and we bring them big boxes of toys for all the kids in the family," Griffin said. "Just to see the sparkle on their faces, that's why I do it. It just warms my heart."

Only a week ago, Norma Phillmore, a single mother of five, was dreading Christmas - that is, until she heard her children had been chosen for the toy patrol.

"I've never seen them as happy as they were. They already like fire trucks and stuff like that, but when they saw them, they were like, `Wow!"' she said. "They wanted bikes for Christmas and I wasn't able to get them and now they have bikes. So they are pretty excited."

This is a Christmas they won't soon forget, she said.

"This means a lot to me and I feel so much better," she said. "At first, I was dreading Christmas, because I didn't have what I wanted to give to them and now I do. And they are excited and that makes me happy."